Within the scholarly debate about the value of visual literacy is the belief that visual literacy bestows the skill of critical viewing, or conscious appreciation of artistry along with the ability to see through manipulative uses and ideological implications of visual images. Critical thinking is commonly viewed as argument skills, cognitive processes, intellectual development, or a combination thereof. Consideration of the emotional response to the visual image is often absent from these perspectives. The structural theory of emotions considers emotions the internalized relation to the world, a kind of transaction between the individual and his environment. Those relations to people, nature, and art are transformed as emotions move individuals to action. This theory also postulates that the aesthetic experience resides in the interrelation between the mind of the viewer and the image or object being viewed; beauty is not objectively or discretely present in either one. The advertising industry uses the emotionality of the artistic tradition to exploit the consumer. In addition to objective skills of rhetoric and argumentation, therefore, critical viewers may need knowledge of persuasive communication techniques. (Contains 22 references.) (BEW)